This is my creative outlet for some stitchin and some bitchin!

My favorite time of the year finally here! Hallloooweeeenie time! This year I picked a looney toons theme so that Chris and I could be the Roadrunner and Wile E Coyote- my favorites! Though it was a little difficult to walk at times (stairs were problematic) I think they look spot on!

I’ve been working on these on and off for the last month along with my friend Sarah’s Marvin the Martian head. I started with Chris’s costume, I used fleece that I ordered dirt cheap online- I bought 5 yards of it and used every last bit! I never end up using all the fabric I buy on projects, let alone that much of it. I made him some fleece pants with a men’s pj pant pattern- these were really quick but I ended up taking them in quite a bit since he is so slim and the coyote is supposed to be skinny.

For the coyote top I used one of his shirts to cut the front and back and sleeves, and I tried to make it longer than normal since the coyote has the contrasting tan color on his belly. I cut a big round piece of the khaki colored fleece and just sewed on the front.

The head was the fun part, I started with a baseball hat and glued some cardboard and foam to elongate the rim- I wanted him to have a really big head!

Next I cut 3 half moon shapes to form his snout and his nose. One of them I glued straight on the hat and stuffed it full of polyfil. The other two I sewed on my machine and stuffed as well to make the cheeks- they kind of stick out pretty far, no?

I sewed one last half moon shape to finish the top of his head, and sewed on his eyes. I made him ears and put a piece of cardboard inside so that they would stand up and flop over a bit. I inserted these in the seam on his head and hand sewed it shut. I wanted him to look more expressive since he is so fully of emotion in his bumbling antics so I made some furrowed eyebrows and glued them on.

Then I took some thread and pulled it tight to create the ridges on his snout, the last part was his nose which I made with a styrofoam ball and felt.

I made his foot covers with foam that I made a little platform out of and then shaped the toes to glue on top. I covered these with the remaining fleece.

The TNT I used the same method with foam but I tied in some cord so that it could hang around his neck and I added in orange pipe cleaners so it would like like they were about to blow up.

To make the Roadrunner I used the same methods as the coyote, but I had to build the beak a little differently. I cut a triangular shape and glued it on the rim of the hat so that it would curve upwards. I put another piece on top of this to create the roadrunners smirk.

Then I made the big feather mop on top of his head- I inserted a piece of cardboard in here like with the coyote ears so that it would stand up tall. I sewed this into the top seam of the head.

I made the shirt using a long sleeve t-shirt and I added a feather ridge on the sleeves. I made shorts with a romper pattern but I didn’t put any elastic or anything in them so I just pinned them on my tights.

The feet are the same as the coyote feet, only there was a talon added on the back and I put toenails and drew the ridges on.

The tail is just straight foam with crdboard sandwiched in and felt glued all around. I tried to sew it to my shirt but it was more effective to just pin it on. Here I am playing pool!

Here are some more pictures from the evening, Sarah is wearing the Marvin the Martian head that we made (all foam and felt, and netting on the eyes), my bother in Law Josh is Yosemite Sam (he made it himself! So proud!) and my sister in law Olivia and her boyfriend Morgan are Pepe le Pew and Penelope cat (she and my mother and law made these and they turned out AWESOME!).

Like this:

Our dog Harper is a good girl at heart, but she’s got a naughty side! The offenses: laying on our couches, getting into the garbage, begging for food, eating the cat’s food… GUILTY!!

This year I found the Simplicity 2519 dog patterns, I think this has been around for a couple years but they were all so cute I couldn’t resist! And the best part, they have a Harper dog modeling all the costumes 🙂 I was torn between the rabbit and the jail suit, Chris really wanted her to wear the tuxedo but ultimately the jailsuit won due to it being the quickest one to make.

The costume was simple, I had to cut it a few inches wider than the biggest size since Harper’s a little more rotund than Simplicity’s definition of an extra large dog. Luckily it fit her well! The underbelly closes with velcro and she had plenty of room to move around.

Unfortunately I didn’t have enough material to perfectly match up the stripes, but I don’t think she minds. The hat was a little tricky because it was super stiff with interfacing,and the top circle had to be sewn to the crown after the crown seam was sewn. It involved some maneuvering around the machine. The instructions said to hand sew the elastic band to the crown, but I just used white thread to match the bottom stripe and machine stitched it, it blends in just fine and is a lot more sturdy. The most fun part was getting to use my font stitching and embroider Bad to the Bone on the front 😀 I had originally wanted to put “Bad Dog” however my brother in law Josh said that Harper would get a complex from people calling her bad dog all night, and I guess he has a point. Bad to the bone is pretty fitting though!

Even though Harper’s gotta do some time, I think she will score big on Halloween treats this year!

It is finally my most favorite time of the year when I get to break out the hot glue gun and create the most ridiculous costumes to wear out in public with my crunk friends! I am a huge Halloween freak >:) Many of my friends recruit me to make them costumes and this is my first round, gotta start early!

My friend Katie and I have been obsessed with the Justin Timberlake’s skit Omeletteville on SNL (circa 2003) in which two neighboring breakfast joints Benny’s and Omeletteville go head to head. Its pretty hilarious, definitely Hulu it if you haven’t seen it. Anyhow, after watching this skit about 100 times Katie finally said, Eureka! This would be an awesome Halloween costume! And she and her fiance’s Halloween fate is now sealed. Obviously she is making him be “Benny’s bacon”

For my plan of attack I immediately thought… foam! You can get 2.5 yard rolls of this foam at Joann’s for $10 a yard, however I used 50% coupons. To make the omelette I cut one in half and sewed it together by hand with heavy duty thread. Then I cut the edges off to round it out into an omelette shape.

Since Justin’s head came through the side of the omelette I held it up to my husband to judge where to cut the holes for her head and her arms. The seam to close it would be the “fold” in the omelette where the cheese would be oozing out.

After getting everything cut out the next step was a lot of felt and a whole lotta hot glue. You can buy felt by the yard and get a ton of it for really cheap. It also appears that the bolts for felt are really huge too- bigger than 60″ but maybe I am imagining that- perhaps I should ask next time! I got yellow for the omelette, I just laid the felt out flat and put the foam on top and just started gluing away. I didnt have much of a strategy except around the holes I cut the felt in wedges like a pizza to curl them around the edges and then just filled in the blank spots with extra. I added some felt to the inside of the omelette where her head popped out so you wouldn’t see the green inside.

Once all the yellow felt was glued on I used the scraps I cut off to make the cheese. I sewed these together into a strip with humps to resemble the cheese melting out, and I hot glued orange felt on these. I then sewed the cheese to the two sides of the omelette to close the seam.

I made the four finger white gloves with white felt on my sewing machine. Here is the final product- sorry for such a grainy photo, this is with my phone, and I am wearing boxer shorts and tank top underneath for the record!

The Benny’s bacon costume was built in the same way. I started with foam but measured it out into 4 strips, the front and back being wider. I held these up to Chris to mark where to cut the holes for the head and arms.

Next I glued on all the felt like I did for the omelette only it took muuuuuuch longer, I cut red and brown felt into wavy strips to look like fat running through the bacon strips. After covering the foam with all the felt I sewed the four pieces together into a block. For the eggs over easy I cut egg shapes and glued white felt to those as well, and made yellow yolks to glue in the middle. The best part about this Benny’s bacon costume is that it is fully funstional. If you have watched the skit there is a point where they get into a physical fight and Justin rips off the top egg leaving him with two eggs on the bottom that resemble… umm the nether region. I just added velcro to the top egg so that Katie could rip off the top egg as in the real skit.

Here it is! I will be sure to add pictures of Katie and her fiance Chris when they rock these out on Halloween with tights and the full get up.

This year my husband and I are going to be the Coyote and Roadrunner, right now a work in progress. More Halloween fun to follow!

Like this:

It isn’t too often that I remake pieces, but I really felt like my paisley dress needed a do-over. The first one I made was cotton paisley and it turned out well, however I can honestly say I still haven’t worn it…. ever. I think this is mostly because the cotton doesn’t have much give to it so its not the most comfortable outfit to wear, especially sitting down. And the paisley print I originally chose was kind of blah. I love this pattern however, and I found this big bold paisley print in this slinky stretch knit fabric (I LOOOOVE my knits!) I think this one turned out much more fun and comfortable than the last one, and even has a 70’s twist.

This fabric was definitely a little more of a challenge to work with, it snags pretty easily so i kept having to straighten it out as I was sewing. The neckline doesn’t quite lay as nice and flat as I would like, but luckily the print is distracting and it isn’t immediatetly noticable.

Since this neckline is so defined with the yolk I thought is was perfect to try one of the decorative stitches on my new machine. I picked this curly sticth since it was mimicked in the dress, here’s a pic- sorry my camera kind of sucks

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